Mid-Autumn Festival at Notre Dame

Party turns into cultural classroom at Notre Dame
Chinese students at ND teach about their country

SOUTH BEND -- Think of the Mid-Autumn Festival as a Chinese Thanksgiving."

It's a traditional Chinese ceremony," graduate student Maria Su said, explaining the traditions behind the festival, celebrated Sunday on the University of Notre Dame campus. "It means harmony in your life."

It also means families coming together to eat traditional foods, especially moon cakes, sweet cakes that were once used, according to Chinese legend, to send secret messages written on papers hidden inside the treats.

The festival falls during the eighth lunar month, when the moon is at its fullest.

Chinese students attending Notre Dame have celebrated the festival for years, but this year's Notre Dame Chinese Friendship Association president, Yong Li, said the group wanted to do more than just offer food at the event.

"China is a country of long history," Li said. "There are a lot of stories to be heard."

Li and other association members put up posters around the LaFortune Ballroom with Chinese legends written in Chinese characters and translated into English. Li, a third-year graduate student, said he sees many Americans have a growing interest in China and wanted to offer a chance to explain more about his country's history.

A majority of the 300 or so people at the party were Chinese, but Li made sure other people interested in Chinese culture, like American families who adopted children from China, also attended the event.

The celebration is also good for Americans of Chinese heritage, Notre Dame sophomore Kan Zhang said.

"We have a lot of American-born Chinese here who don't know much about their culture," Zhang said.